Cork manager John Meyler calls for rethink on training demands for GAA players

Cork manager John Meyler at the Allianz Hurling League 2018 launch at Croke Park in Dublin (Image: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile)

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Cork manager John Meyler believes that training demands in the GAA are over the top and need to be toned down.

Meyler referenced the schedule of his son David, the Hull City player and sometime Republic of Ireland captain, which is focused much more around games given the sheer volume of them in cross channel soccer.

However, with this year’s Munster and Leinster Championships being run on a round robin basis for the first time on the back of a similar format for the Allianz Hurling League, which gets underway this weekend, Meyler is one of a number of inter-county managers who will have to tailor their approach in 2018.

Indeed, he believes that the new Championship format will serve to cut down on the number of draining training sessions.

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Meyler explained: “He [David] does his six or seven weeks of pre-season when he goes back from the start of July to mid-August then the rest is just topping up.

“That’s really Saturday after Saturday after Saturday and then cup matches thrown in on Tuesday nights. There is no time for training, there is only time for recovery, analysis, relaxation in a way and minding niggles and that.

“That’s going to play a huge part in these matches going forward.

“As distinct from professional sport where it’s about your next game, the GAA is about your last one where you over-analyse the games and talking about a match that was one, two, three, four weeks ago whereas now you’ve another match.

“After Kilkenny [on Saturday night], you’ve Wexford the following week then Clare then Tipperary then Waterford and then bang you’re into the Munster Championship. There’s not much time to think and talk.”

The demands on inter-county players has been a hot topic of late and Meyler agrees that they are over the top.

“The expectation levels, the training levels for the objective is too much. We maybe over-train.

“It’s to get the balance but in soccer every club finishes the same week more or less except for a FA Cup final or something like that.

“You need to finish at the same time for holidays and then the same pre-season of six or seven weeks so every county has the same pre-season.

“Then you’re into the matches and the structure of the matches will determine the pre-season.

“Like, that’s really going to happen this year because you have a game Sunday-Sunday then a break then Sunday-Sunday-Sunday. It will be exciting for customers.”

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The former Wexford, Kerry and Carlow boss believes the training culture in the GAA must develop a less is more approach.

“I think it has to. It has to come to a more strategic structure. The calendar is there and you look at our four matches in the Munster Championship and two of them are in Cork, which will facilitate Cork business.

“It’s Cork businesses who are supporting Cork hurling so that will facilitate all of that.

“It gives players a chance to map out where they are going to be. They might have a free Sunday whereas before it wasn’t as structured.”

He added: “I was involved with those in Carlow and Kerry and you’re finished in June and it’s all over and you start back in October.

“I think you have to keep everybody hurling the same way but that’s a GAA cultural fixtures issue.”